Where to begin? Cambodia has been both nostalgic and surprising. Off the bat, we wish we could have had more time here. Michael had few to no expectations of the country, probably figuring it would be pretty third world from Val's account of it, having been here five years ago. That, mixed in with the horrific things we've read about Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge regime and the genocide that wiped out 2 out of 7 million Cambodians as recently as 1975-78. Everyone here has lost someone to the genocide, an uncle, a parent, an entire family. The country didn't really open up to tourists until probably 10 years ago when there were still traces of Khmer Rouge in outlying areas of Siem Reap, when taxi drivers were still afraid to take people to the more remote temples.
Five years ago, Cambodia was only a shadow of what it has become now. Kudos to them. All the roads are paved now, including what used to be a pothole ridden dirt road that connects Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, with Siem Reap where Angkor Wat is. New bars and restaurants and nice stores and hotels have popped up all over, making it an accesible and ideal place for a getaway. So ideal that there are a thousand times more tourists now than there were five years ago. Busloads of Japanese tourists can easily ruin a good photo op.
Landmine victims are an atrocious reminder of worse times, they are a common sight here along with the many shoeless street children who wander about begging late into the night, miniscule 5 year olds with their one year old brother or sister clinging to their sides in a ghetto baby bjorn. Instead of giving them money, we've been buying racks of bananas and doling those out one by one.
Phnom Penh
We flew out of Ho Chi Minh City last Monday, eager to explore a whole new country. With Val teetering on the edge of falling ill, we opted for a half hour flight instead of the 8 hour bus ride. The bus would have costed $6, one dollar less than our cab ride from the Phnom Penh airport into the city. Oh well.
We were to meet our much missed travel buddies, Jenna and Angelo, at the Foreign Correspondents' Club that evening for drinks. Set in a colonial building with wide airy verandas overlooking the peaceful Mekong River, the boulevard teeming with waiting tuk tuk drivers, street vendors, and all walks of life out for an evening stroll. Inside the FCC, geckos roamed the faint yellow walls, occasionally ducking behind the many frames documenting decades of photojournalism. We sampled every spot in the house, from the mosaic tiled table tops and wrought iron chairs where we started with a snack, to the bar stools at the balcony where a careless wave of one's hand could send a glass of delicious pinot gris plummeting onto an unsuspecting pedestrian below, to politely stuffed Craftsman leather club chairs and matching dark wood coffee tables in the lounge area where we finally met our friends. How quickly we were seduced by the glamor of it all (Happy Hour specials did not help) and 6 carafs of wine later, we emerged, enebriated from our most excellent first four hours in Cambodia.
Tuol Sleng
Or S 21, was the only sight we had the time and energy for in Phnom Penh. Tuol Sleng was a secondary school used by Pol Pot as an interrogation, torture and detention center during the Cambodian genocide. Hundreds and thousands of men, women and children were held captive here under the strictest and most unreasonable of rules, cruelly tortured, chained to the floors and walls, burned in their beds. Most of them were eventually taken to the Killing Fields and bludgeoned to death. We spent a few hours at Tuol Sleng, wandering down its silent corridors with the unforgettable checkered tile pattern on the floors, observing walls that look like they have not been wiped down since its last occupants. Thousands of black and white photographs of every single person who came here is housed in room after room in one of the buildings, mute epitaphs of the unfortunate souls who passed through here.
Our faithful driver, Mr. Penh whom we'd met the night before at Jenna and Angelo's guesthouse drove us around on his scooter, waiting for us whenever we went inside. After Tuol Sleng, he took us to the Russian Market while we waited out a short drizzle, then we took him to lunch (the poor guy looked like he never eats)and called it a day, deciding against the 30km potholey ride out to the Killing Fields. After lunch, our hangovers got the better of us and we promptly returned to our guesthouse for much needed naps.
In the morning, we boarded a sweet bus to Siem Reap. Big roomy seats, a bathroom on board, cold towels, bottled water, and a box of pastries for our 6 hour journey.
Siem Reap
When we arrived at the bus station, scores of tuk tuk drivers crowded around the bus, some holding up signs with peoples' names on them, some offering dirt cheap rides into town "just to take a look" at where you want to stay. Our names were in the mix (guesthouses in Phnom Penh arrange these pickups so that the drivers can take you to guesthouses of their friends. The tuk tuk drivers don't care where you stay, they just want the chance to talk you into a 3 day commitment for them to be your sole driver to all the temples, a lucrative daily rate for them at $6 a day.) Since we had not arranged any accomodations, we decided to drive around and take a look at what was available. We usually have had no problem since we have never been in a place in high season. But Siem Reap being still quite a small town, and since most people are getting their guesthouse recommendations out of the same Bible (the Lonely Planet, we had trouble finding a place with any room. Getting desperate and tired, we settled on a place in a very central part of town. The rooms were simple but the location was perfect.
This lovely little town is almost unrecognizable from what it was 5 years ago. Everything seems to have gotten a face lift or grown in size. Beautifully designed restaurants, cafes and bars, a real pharmacy, spas and so many new hotels and guesthouses. It's difficult to put it in the "third world" category any longer. We spent our sunset at one of the more popular sunset destinations, on top of Phnom Bakheng temple. It was less than underwhelming, no sun was to be seen through the heavy clouds. It was very crowded and at the end, it started to pour. We hiked back down the dirt path in the dark, happy to find our faithful tuk tuk driver waiting for us. Home Charles! (Actually, Home Mr. Sopthep!)
The next day we rented bikes and rode out to Angkor Wat, the Bayon, and Ta Phrom, all temples in the Angkor compound. Little did we realize, we had ventured quite far out by the time we'd gotten to Ta Phrom and we were not happy campers on the one and a half hour ride back home. Short of suffering from heat stroke, and exhaustion (I guess I only speak for Jenna and I)Jenna and Val suffered from a heat rash, a stinging combo of sun, pollution, bug spray and sunblock. But it was a great day.
The next day Jenna was ill and did not join us on Temple day number 2. Angelo, Michael and Val hired a tuk tuk to take us to Bantei Srey, a remote temple about an hour drive away. It was smaller than we expected, but worth the jouney. On the way back we deliberated on whether to risk impending rain and darkness to visit a temple even farther away (it would have been a 4-6 hour roundtrip) that exists in the middle of the jungle, supposedly a true Indiana Jones adventure. It was already 1:30 in the afternoon and embarking on that trip so late would not have been smart. So after much gnashing of teeth and kicking ourselves for not starting out earlier, we decided to head back towards the Angkor compound and explore some other temples we still hadn't seen. We had a great time and at our last temple, where it was about to rain, the place got kind of eerie (in a cool way). The wind kicked up, blowing dead leaves through the stone corridors of the temple. As the skies darkened and crushed the shadows into a deeper shade of black, the juxtoposition of the green moss against the dark grey stone of the temple walls really enhanced the mystery of the place. Who would have expected that a world consisting of just three colors would be so intoxicating? We happened to be walking though a series of doors, all aligned perfectly, the last one like a window opening into the green trees outside the temple. Looking down that long hallway of doors gave the illusion of facing mirrors, when you are able to see your reflection into infinity.
Another fantastic day. We were sad to have to leave so soon. In the morning we would all fly tp Bangkok where we would finally part ways: Capobiancos to India, Chamorros to the southern Thai islands.
